Benny Lewis' 3-month quest to become fluent in Mandarin

January 9, 2012 at 07:38 PM

I totally expect the same comment about my Chinese, no matter what I upload.

Absolutely true. If someone is convnced it's not possble it's extremely hard to convince him/her otherwise. That imho is no excuse to not provide proper evidence of your claims. The world and internet is full of people with false claims. so for your own credibility, provide some compelling evidence.

One major critique I have of major testing systems is that they presume a particular set of topics are what people generally discuss on a day to day basis as universal, just because intellectuals are more likely to talk about them.

Sorry, but I think this is nonsense. Yes courses are aimed at an average speaker and at a 'standard' pronunciation, grammar etc. For a good reason. Those 'standards' have the best chance to be understood. You're most likely to meet 'average' people and converse with them about 'average' subjects. If you feel you don't need words like vest etc I think you're again saying you ain't aiming at a true c1. A true c1 can converse about diverse daily subjects. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with prioritizing and fitting your language skills to your own needs. It's just not c1 if you have andvanced communication skills in IT but are unable to have a basic chat with a lady about her shopping 'adventures' at the lunchtable.

January 9, 2012 at 07:49 PM

Benny! I'm rooting for you. I just started learning Chinese (self taught) over a week ago and would be very happy to see someone learn it in such wrapping speed. My sister used to study Chinese in Taiwan for one full year. Every time when we ran into Chinese, my sis could talk to them and seemed to carry on the conversation (I had no clue what they talked about). However my sister confessed that she couldn't read/write well. Since your goal is to just master conversation, you maybe smarter than my sis and does it in 3 months.

Leosmith posted that "This is starting to sound like his failed Thai experiment already..." If you used to study Thai, the Chinese four tones should be a piece of cake because imho they are subset of Thai five tones (my first language is Thai and I find Chinese tones very simple to recognize/duplicate). However Chinese language is more difficult because of the gargantuan number of characters. Since you don't plan to focus on writing, maybe your goal is attainable...

Yeah keep us posted. People on this site are great. They always sincerely help out.

I'm eager to learn from you if you can actually do it. :-)

Good luck

Patrick

January 9, 2012 at 07:54 PM

Don't know what the show is about - depends on the "current events". As I said, politics isn't my forte in any language.

They very rarely talk about politics, although it does come up from time to time. They talk more about general topics of interest that have been happening recently in greater China and the world, but the show is quite freestyle and usually starts with one main topic and then sees where discussion goes from there.

You never know, if you ask nicely, they might even take you as a guest. They have other Chinese speaking foreigners on from time to time, and I could imagine someone who had learnt Mandarin in 3 months is probably the sort of guest/topic they'd be interested in.

Edit: Link to videos of the show here.

January 9, 2012 at 07:56 PM

I'd be happy with anything showing that you are "able to participate in multi-party conversations in a social context without slowing down the pace for native speakers, either because [he] can't express [himself] or because they have to change their speaking to let [him] understand, as long as the conversation is about non-specialist topics".

Imron's suggestion of 锵锵三人行 is a good one, but features a Beijing accent, which might be unfair. You could also look at 康熙来了, which features 6 gorgeous Taiwanese women, one effeminate guy, and a dog, talking about everyday stuff in an everyday fashion. It doesn't get any easier than that, it is a show everyone in Taiwan knows well (quite tragically), and 10 minutes is plenty of listening.

No need to provide cool materials, just have a look at 10 minutes of the most recent episode after 3 months and honestly tell us how much you can understand. A fluent person should understand most of it. Think of it as an honest self-evaluation, not an exam.

EDIT: Or you can apply for 非诚勿扰. They LOVE foreign contestants, and you'll get to talk to 24 beautiful Chinese girls, and take one home. I think everyone would love seeing that

January 9, 2012 at 07:59 PM

It's just not c1 if you have andvanced communication skills in IT but are unable to have a basic chat with a lady about her shopping 'adventures' at the lunchtable.

Well then I don't have C1 in English apparently. In this situation I would nod politely' date=' but wouldn't be able to actually participate in the discussion. It's a guy thing...

At different times, I could get by in French, Italian and Spanish. Compared to these Languages, Chinese is orders of magnitude harder.

I speak these languages fluently - that's very different to "getting by", and the greatest challenges are beyond vocabulary, and don't exist in Chinese. You are belittling these without enough experience. I can already get by to a certain level (obviously extremely limited) in Chinese. I really do find Asian language learners or fluent speakers' dismissal of other languages being easier as being based on nothing more than conjecture.

Yes Chinese is hard, and yes common words in French make it easier. I still don't agree that this makes Chinese ORDERS of magnitude harder. At worst it will be twice as hard. As I said, I'll express this better as I get deeper into the language, but to be frank I really don't want to hear this any more from people who have not learned the languages they dismiss to a fluent level ;)

Otherwise, appreciate the tips everyone! As I said, I'll come back here for questions as I progress, and am curious to hear your thoughts about my first week when I write that out in detail!

January 9, 2012 at 08:06 PM

Imron's suggestion of 锵锵三人行 is a good one, but features a Beijing accent

The host has a northern accent (he's from Shijiazhuang I believe), but the other 2 guests on the show are from all over. You get HK accents, Taiwan accents, southern China accents, northern China accents. It covers the whole range which is one of the reasons I like it.

康熙来了 has too much flashing, banging and wacky sound-effects for me to watch for more than a few minutes.

January 9, 2012 at 08:28 PM

I hope your interview on 锵锵三人行

.

January 9, 2012 at 08:28 PM

EDIT: Or you can apply for 非诚勿扰. They LOVE foreign contestants, and you'll get to talk to 24 beautiful Chinese girls, and take one home. I think everyone would love seeing that

Haha, that would be fun to watch.

January 9, 2012 at 08:46 PM

Well then I don't have C1 in English apparently. In this situation I would nod politely, but wouldn't be able to actually participate in the discussion. It's a guy thing...

I know the feeling, I'm extremely bad at small talk and feigning interest too.

I really do find Asian language learners or fluent speakers' dismissal of other languages being easier as being based on nothing more than conjecture. Yes Chinese is hard, and yes common words in French make it easier. I still don't agree that this makes Chinese ORDERS of magnitude harder.

I have to agree on this one. Of course the world and myself have changed. Nevertheless it took me about 5 years to read my first English book, two years of study to read my first german book, Three years French and 10 lessons of Spanish never resulted in reading a book. Now, a year into selfstudy Chinese I'm reading my first adult level Chinese book. As said the world is changed, computers and pop-up dictionaries make it a lot easier. The motivation factor of learning Chinese voluntarily versus learning English german and french compulsory in school makes a huge difference too. Sure Chinese is hard as any new language. Sure it has factors that make it harder than the average language, specially for western learners. You stretch it with 3 months, but over here some people are claiming it takes decennia and are extremely critical claiming that even Da Shan is not fluent as the difference with a native speaker can be heard. I guess it's a matter of standards and references. I prefer your approach better, take a shot, get conversational and a few errors, an accent is no big deal. Utility is what counts.

January 9, 2012 at 08:58 PM

At worst it will be twice as hard.

On a required hours to learn basis, the US Foreign Service Institute ranks it as roughly 3-4 times more difficult for an English native speaker than languages like French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and so on. This is not conjecture, but based on teaching a large number of different languages to foreign service diplomats over decades.

Granted you have your own learning methodology and a different focus than the FSI, so such comparisons of difficulty levels may not be so applicable, but I don't think you can just dismiss claims that Chinese is more difficult as conjecture. There's pretty reliable data that shows it takes significantly more time for a native English speaker to achieve proficiency in Chinese (at all levels, from basic through to professional) and other Asian languages, compared to European ones.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing how much progress you make in 3 months, and for your updates along the way.

January 9, 2012 at 09:37 PM

I'm not sure if Benny realises that by saying so confidently right from the start that Chinese is no harder for a native English speaker to learn than it is for a native English speaker to learn French or German or Italian, while it might seem to him that he's showing a can-do positive attitude to others who are considering starting to study Chinese and boldly dispelling all those negative nay-saying points of view, he's also telling all those who've found Chinese a harder language to learn than French or German or Italian that they're a bit thick. Which is why people want to see PROOF at the end! So they can find out either where they've been going wrong all this time, or that, in fact, they're not as thick as Benny thought they were. His no doubt well-meaning challenge to himself actually comes across like a challenge to those of us who've spent a bit of time learning Chinese.....

January 9, 2012 at 10:14 PM

I think that Benny is a cool guy, I like his videos, and I think that he means well. I just think that he is a bit vague in defining his goal.

This is what I think: I am sure that he will learn Mandarin to a level where he can converse with native speakers about basic topics, like he does with German and

. Note that these videos feature A1/A2 vocabulary and grammar. He guides the conversation and has cooperating partners, but he delivers with a convincing accent and seems comfortable using the language (I am not saying that his level is not higher, just commenting on the videos). This is quite impressive, especially if he only studied for a few months. I expect that he can make a video like this one where he interviews a Taiwanese person and I would find that very impressive already. It's a conversational level that opens the door to a new culture, and a great achievement.

But I also think this: After 3 months in Taipei, Benny will not be able to understand any of the videos we linked to, with native people speaking at native speed. And these are the easy ones. He will catch some sentences and some words, but will not be able to follow or understand what they are talking about. Actual modern show for young adults like iPartment which are trivial for natives will be totally incomprehensible as all the jokes are full of slang and cultural references.

So in a way, he can reach fluency (of the first kind). But he actually thinks that this will be enough, and in fact, the journey only begins at that point, which will be obvious from listening to native materials. It's still a great exercise, though.

January 9, 2012 at 10:45 PM

Does Benny talk about what he estimates his vocabulary to be in other languages, and what he expects it to be in Chinese after 3 months?

That to me seems to be the greatest impediment to becoming fluent in 3 months. Part of the def of C1 (from wikipedia) is "Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts". That to me implies a fairly big vocabulary. Not to argue again on how much vocabulary is needed, but let's say "wide range" means 5,000 - 10,000 words. I would go for the latter, but let's say 5,000 words. That's over 50 words a day to learn. Sustained. For 90 days. Each and every day. And here, "learned" means being able to recognize in conversation at full speed, which to me is much harder than, say, being able to read at ones own pace. 5000 words seems pretty impossible to me, even spending full time learning.

For someone motivated and talented, I could see learning basic Chinese grammar, getting the tones and sounds right, and maybe getting a vocabulary of 1000 words. Which is a great achievement, more than I could do. But 1000 words is not enough for a "wide range" of topics.

January 10, 2012 at 04:53 AM

That to me implies a fairly big vocabulary. Not to argue again on how much vocabulary is needed, but let's say "wide range" means 5,000 - 10,000 words. I would go for the latter, but let's say 5,000 words. That's over 50 words a day to learn. Sustained. For 90 days. Each and every day. And here, "learned" means being able to recognize in conversation at full speed, which to me is much harder than, say, being able to read at ones own pace. 5000 words seems pretty impossible to me, even spending full time learning.

You'll need to read to be able to learn that many words. The task is much easier with the Romance language when coming from English because there are so many words with shared roots and even spelling.

I remember Renzhe saying a while ago that he felt that he could speak more Portguese after studying it for only a few weeks than he could speak Chinese after studying it for years.

January 10, 2012 at 07:08 AM

This topic reminds me of what I did a few years ago. I actually took part in a Chinese competition after 3 months of learning Chinese. The first part was delivering a rehearsed speech and the second part was talking about a random topic which we had to pick out of a box. My topic was something like "My best friend...". As I just knew a few hundred words I really couldn't say much about "my best friend" but in class we had talked about our family members and our hobbies, so I cheated and said that my best friend was my father, then I continued talking about how we would go fishing and mountain climbing during weekends when I was young and then how he got busy with his job and didn't have much time to spend with us, blah blah. I think I spoke for about 2 minutes and it actually 感動ed the judges (I might put parts of the video on the internet if my teacher agrees to give me the DVD after the winter vacation) . At that time I was progressing very fast and Chinese seemed to be an easy language but the party was over a few months later and I realized that Chinese was an old dragon developed by a large number of bookworms in thousands of years (as others have said before) and was nothing like the languages I had learned before. Even now after about 5 years and knowing a considerable number of words I don’t really think that my Chinese level can qualify as C1 because it takes many years of immersing yourself in the culture to fully understand how to use these words and characters the way a native speaker would. However I’m curious to know how smarter people would learn Chinese and see if there are more effective methods.

January 10, 2012 at 07:23 AM

If you get to B1 Chinese within 3 months, I'll be impressed and inspired.

After almost 2 decades of learning, I think my English is somewhere between B2 and C1. Maybe a little bit closer to C1.

January 10, 2012 at 08:10 AM

the Chinese four tones ... are subset of Thai five tones

This is false.

I really do find Asian language learners or fluent speakers' dismissal of other languages being easier as being based on nothing more than conjecture.

I realize you probably won't take the word of a fluent speaker either, but for what it's worth, you are wrong. If you define difficulty as time required to reach a given level, than Mandarin & Japanese are 3-4 times more difficult than French or Spanish. So if you want to prove us wrong and call us a bunch of bone-heads, at least set up some sort of reasonable test. Obviously, you can't please everybody, but a reasonable attempt at assessment would be appreciated.

Regarding pronunciation, even though you talk like it's wasting your time, it isn't. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm going to be really disappointed if your first video has really poor tones, etc. I'd much rather see a short simple one than one with really bad pronunciation.

January 10, 2012 at 12:04 PM

@benny, as I'm sure you're aware, you're never going to please everyone. Even if you you have fantastic pronunciation and tones, if you make one small mistake, you're still going to get people on the Internet calling you out on it (if it can happen to Dashan, you'd better believe it will happen to you too).

So just do what you do, because after all that's what we want to see you doing (some to cheer you on, others to knock you down).

Anyway, I'm not sure if it's the same in Taiwan as in mainland China, but on the mainland the typical Chinese response to any foreigner speaking Chinese (even if they are speaking it badly) is "wow, your Chinese is so great", so it can be difficult to get honest feedback sometimes. By the look of things, you're going to have plenty of people not afraid to give brutally honest feedback on every little mistake you make, which in some ways could be a good thing.

Personally speaking, I'll be more disappointed if your last video has really poor tones, rather than the first one.

January 10, 2012 at 02:15 PM

@Leosmith I'm not sure where the hell you got this idea that I think pronunciation is a waste of time??? It's been the majority of my work so far! The teacher I saw said I've made the fastest progress she's ever seen with pronunciation. Perhaps she's just being super nice, but she's been teaching foreigners for 20 years so I'll take it as somewhat accurate. You'll see for yourself next week if it's "OK" for two weeks of exposure. But yes, I won't sound like a native already...

Please ease off a bit; you've been on top of me in other threads online and I'd rather you not take the same strategy here, which is precisely what you've done with this "waste of time" suggestion. I want useful feedback, not purely negative criticism based on hearsay.

Some of your advice has been genuinely useful, but you know I'll ignore it if you sandwhich it between frustrating suggestions of me saying things that simply aren't true.

I expect my tones in my first video will be slightly better to those my Thai video, which as I keep telling you, was the result of one weekend's work! Not awe-inspiring, but natives say it's totally understandable and the majority of tones were very close, even if it could obviously be improved. I really am not interested in the super high standards you are asking of me after just one or two weeks! My priority is to be understood, not to sound like a poet. With more exposure and feedback, this will get better.

Also, please see Silent's interesting reply above that confirms my suspicions about this "harder/easier" argument. In a purely academic environment, yes it will take much longer to learn Chinese. Things are way more complex than that. I'm done arguing this point until I bring it up deeper into my mission.

@imron Yes, that's the kind of way-too-nice treatment I've gotten in countries like Brazil (them telling me how great I am no matter how badly I speak). I have ways around this ;)

@renzhe Those videos were discussing things like the life of an au-pair in a foreign country. I really don't think you are being fair by saying it's A1/A2!!! I "guide" the conversation because I'm interviewing them to share an interesting story. For a turn of the tables, please listen to when Radio Aragon interviewed me in Spanish here: http://www.irishpoly...n-the-radio/en/ They asked the questions, and it was LIVE in the radio, which is a lot of pressure to help make you nervous.

I think at this stage everyone has made it clear that I'm aiming too high, and too much discussion is going on about how I'll "prove" myself even though that's not for another 3 months. I'd be more interested in suggestions of how to improve my chances of succeeding. This post gave me great tips (while still starting by saying they think I won't be successful) http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=1028 A mixture of scepticism and practical advice would really be ideal.

I'm only allowing myself up to two hours maximum a day of English exposure, and the majority of that is online. I prefer not to spend this time arguing. I'll ask questions if I feel the tone is supportive, which fortunately it is from most of you.

January 10, 2012 at 02:54 PM

Given you've learned a lot of other languages hopefully you'll have some useful and novel advice for other learners once you've done your three months. I can't help but think though that you'd already decided a big chunk of what you're going to conclude even before landing in Taiwan: that you found Chinese no harder than French (or whatever). I wonder if this prejudgement or agenda might colour your experience. To quote you on Snigel's site:

When I confirm this with more experience I intend to write a blog post precisely saying that Asian languages are *not* harder than European ones (nor vice versa), when starting from a European language.

Shouldn't that be an "If I confirm this with more experience" rather than a "when"?

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